


A Match Made In Hell

by Gyhl



Category: Diablo (Video Game), Diablo III, Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Canon-Typical Violence, Diablo characters are being played by Kingsman characters, Do I know what I'm doing?, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Graphic Description, Implied/Referenced Abuse, M/M, Multi, Political Marriage, Polyamory, Post-Canon, Some canon alterations, You can go in canon-blind, characters may be added to, most of these are dual roles, nope not a fucking clue, ships may change or be added to, tags will be added to, they're literally going into hell
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:35:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25600681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyhl/pseuds/Gyhl
Summary: It’s been five years since the Nephalem fought and defeated the Lords of Hell; five years since he climbed to the top of the High Heavens and fought the reborn Prime Evil; five years since he sought out the corrupted Angel, Malthael, and destroyed him to stop him from eradicating humanity.And while the Eternal Conflict between Heaven and Hell rages on, both sides want a temporary pause; time to lick their wounds and rebuild their armies. The new Lords of Hell have an idea: they will unite the High Heavens, the Burning Hells, and the mortal realm through the marriage of an Angel, a Demon, and a Man. And the Man they’ve chosen… is the Nephalem, himself.Can Eggsy, the Nephalem and a Demon Hunter sworn to vengeance against all Demonkind, put his past and his feelings aside for the good of all humanity?Based on this PromptYou shouldn't need to know both canons to read this.
Relationships: Daisy & Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Gary "Eggsy" Unwin & Michelle Unwin, Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Harry Hart | Galahad/Merlin, Harry Hart | Galahad/Merlin/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Lee Unwin/Michelle Unwin, Tilde/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin
Comments: 34
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...and that's what you missed ~~on Glee!~~ in Diablo

In the beginning, there was not only darkness. There was a single, perfect pearl; this was where Anu lived. Anu was everything; It was good and evil, light and dark. Its body was crystalline and It wanted only one thing: purity and perfection. Thus Anu found a way to shed Itself of all evil, all darkness, all pain. And, for a time, things were Good.

But from that mass of evil came another. It was a seven-headed dragon, and his name was Tathamet; he was the Prime Evil. Bound together within the pearl, the two beings fought a ceaseless battle for untold ages until they delivered the final blows to one another. The energies released by their fury burst into an explosion so vast that it gave birth to the universe.

Anu’s body spun out and cooled over ages. Its Eye became the center of all Creation; it became the linchpin holding the existence of the universe in place. From Its spine was born the Crystal Arch, the heart of the High Heavens. The Arch, itself, resonates and can be sensed even by some Men, and it is from the Arch and its harmony that the Angels were born. Each Angel is the embodiment of a piece of Anu’s power. The five Archangels who make up the Angiris Council - the rulers of the High Heavens - embody the Virtues of Anu. They are Wisdom, Valor, Justice, Hope, and Fate.

Just as Anu’s body created the High Heavens, Tathamet’s body created the Burning Hells and the races of Demons rose from the corpse. Each of his heads gave birth to one of the Evils. The three most powerful heads gave birth to the Great Evils, the Rulers of Hell; they are Hatred, Destruction, and Terror. The Lesser Evils, birthed of the four weaker heads, were the Lords of Anguish, Pain, Lies, and Sin. 

Thus began the Eternal Conflict, the war for control over all Creation, for whoever controlled the Eye of Anu could shape reality as they pleased.

They fought, mainly, in a place between Heaven and Hell; a place that would come to be known as Pandemonium. The Eye - which would come to be called the Worldstone - changed hands many times during the war, but with neither side ultimately controlling it.

The Embodiment of Justice - the Archangel Tyrael - had a bastion built around the Worldstone in an attempt to keep it safe, hidden away in a secret chamber. This bastion became known as the Pandemonium Fortress. Despite the ongoing war, the Worldstone remained safely hidden away.

But as happens in wars, there were those on both sides who grew weary of it. They wanted a place to go, somewhere away from the Conflict. The first Angel to rebel was Inarius, advisor to the Angiris Council who served under Tyrael’s command. He tried to make Tyrael see that the Eternal Conflict was unjust, but Justice would not agree to his views.

Inarius was eventually captured on the battlefield, and when he awoke in chains, he told his captor of his desire to be free of the Conflict. His captor freed him. Her name was Lilith, and she was the daughter of the Lord of Hatred. She had suffered much at the hands of her father and she, too, had tired of the Conflict. Inarius looked into her heart and fell in love with what he saw. She joined his forces and eventually came to love him, as well. They pledged themselves to one another and vowed to find some way out of the Conflict together.

The rebel Angels and Demons stormed the Fortress and managed to make their way to the Worldstone. Using what they knew of the harmonics of the Crystal Arch, the rebels found a way to alter it just enough for it to slip into a pocket dimension. There, the rebels build a world around the Eye. Inarius named the world Sanctuary and the rebels lived there in peace. Lilith and Inarius were the first to have children, and these children born of the union of Demons and Angels, were the Nephalem.

Over the aeons, the Nephalem lost the powers that came from being the offspring of Angels and Demons. They became Men, and Sanctuary became their world - and a new battlefield for the Conflict. Eventually, the Angiris Council voted on whether or not to destroy Sanctuary; it returned three to one, with one abstained vote, to let it exist. An accord was struck between the Council and Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred, that both sides would leave Sanctuary be. He had one condition: Inarius would be turned over to him, as a slave, for all time. The Council agreed and both sides returned to their Conflict, keeping out of Sanctuary and staying away from Men.

At least… they did until Hell broke its word. But the Council refused to break theirs, leaving Men to deal with the forces of Hell on their own.

Nearly three millennia later, the Lesser Evils rose up against their three elder brothers and forcibly exiled them to Sanctuary. To combat the three Great Evils, Tyrael gathered mortal heroes and created the Brotherhood of the Horadrim. Less than twenty years after it was formed, the Three were imprisoned. Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred, was trapped beneath a temple. Baal, the Lord of Destruction, was captured in a Soulstone, but it had been damaged. The leader of the Horadrim, Tal Rasha, sacrificed himself, allowing the Soulstone to be put inside of his body. He would know neither death nor peace as he was sealed in a tomb to wrestle with the Lord of Destruction for all time. Diablo, the Lord of Terror, was captured and his Soulstone was kept deep in the catacombs beneath a cathedral in Khanduras.

Over two-hundred and fifty years later, one of the guardians of Mephisto’s Soulstone became petulant and angry; his name was Lazarus. Lazarus was taken from his post and reassigned to the entourage of Leoric. Lazarus whispered poison in his ear and convinced Leoric to travel to Khanduras. There, Leoric declared himself King, and Lazarus led him to Tristram, and to the ancient cathedral that would serve as Leoric’s ‘seat of power’.

It was then that Diablo woke within his prison. He lured Lazarus to him and forced the mortal to break his Soulstone. Freed from his prison, Diablo found himself too weak to act on his own. He needed an anchor to the mortal world, a host. He weighed the souls in Tristram and decided that King Leoric would be his anchor. Diablo invaded the King’s mind but could not take full control of him. He needed a different host, one simple and innocent, and so he commanded Lazarus to bring him Leoric’s young son, Albrecht. Diablo’s shattered Soulstone was driven into the boy’s head and he entered the child’s body. Soon enough, he twisted the boy’s body into his own form, and Diablo walked the world of Men.

Albrecht’s elder brother, Aidan, led a group into the Cathedral and down, down, down into the catacombs beneath it. There, they fought Diablo and slew him, but Aidan thought he heard a child’s scream within the Lord of Terror’s death scream and he cut the Soulstone from the body. He watched as Diablo’s form turned back to his young brother. His mind broke and, in his madness and grief, Aiden decided the best way to keep Diablo contained… was to jam the Soulstone into his own forehead.

It took Diablo six years to corrupt Aidan and take the Prince as his new host. Diablo sought to free his brothers from their prisons. Perhaps as an olive branch, or perhaps because they simply saw the change in the winds, the twin Demons Andariel, the Maiden of Anguish, and Duriel, the Lord of Pain, traveled to Sanctuary. Andariel helped keep Tristram in chaos, to keep the last of the Horadrim, a Man named Deckard Cain, from slowing Diablo. Duriel traveled to Tal Rasha’s tomb, and helped Baal break free of his bonds. And thus, five of the Lords of Hell walked Sanctuary.

Andariel and Duriel were defeated, their essences sent back to Hell. Mephisto barely had time to revel in his freedom before he, too, was defeated and his Soulstone taken. Diablo was tracked to Hell, to the Chaos Sanctuary, his seat of power within the Burning Hells. There he was defeated and his Soulstone taken. They were brought to the Hellforge and destroyed, with the hope of it destroying the Lords within them.

Baal, meanwhile, traveled to the Worldstone. Tyrael brought the heroes who’d defeated the other four Lords of Hell to face Baal. But he got there too late. Baal managed to completely corrupt the Worldstone, conquering it for Hell. And after the heroes defeated Baal, Tyrael realized he had only one choice: he had to destroy the Worldstone.

The destruction of the Worldstone had far reaching consequences. Sanctuary was left open to the forces of Hell. Cain tirelessly sought for a way to close Sanctuary off again. The part of Sanctuary closest to the explosion was left a dead wasteland. And Malthael, the Angel of Wisdom, left Heaven. He’d come to believe that Hell would always triumph when it came to Men, thus he abandoned his station to learn more about humanity.

Twenty years pass, and a star falls from the Heavens, crashing through Tristram Cathedral and trapping Cain within. Eggsy, one of the Demon Hunters, sworn to vengeance on all Demonkind, followed the star to the Cathedral. The star was no star; it was an Angel - one of the Archangels. Tyrael, finding Heaven’s refusal to help the mortals of Sanctuary to be unjust, opted to Fall rather than stay there and do nothing.

He recognized that Eggsy was no mere mortal. Eggsy… was a Nephalem. Tyrael aided him in the fight against the Lords of Hell. After they were defeated, they coalesced and became the Prime Evil. Only this time, they were not Tathamet; _Diablo_ was the Prime Evil, and he set his sights on the destruction of the High Heavens.

The Prime Evil proved stronger than the Archangels, and Diablo made his way to the Crystal Arch. If he could corrupt it, there could never be Angels again. But the Nephalem followed him, defeated him, and cast him down from the High Heavens.

It wasn’t long before a new terror arose. Malthael, driven mad by his quest for answers, had come to a simple conclusion. The only way to keep Men out of Hell’s grasp and to end the Eternal Conflict… was to wipe out anything with Demon blood. He ceased to be the Angel of Wisdom and became the Angel of Death.

The Nephalem hunted him down, traveling to the very heart of the Pandemonium Fortress. He took the very power of death inside of himself in order to defeat the corrupted Angel. In an attempt to defeat the Nephalem, the corrupted Angel summoned the essences of the Lords of Hell and absorbed them. But it came to naught and, when he lay dying, he exploded in a blinding flash, releasing all the souls he’d taken inside of him. Including those of the Lords of Hell.

It’s been five years, and Sanctuary has had a hard time recovering. Entire populations were decimated by Malthael. It’s led to famine, to wars among Men, to religious schisms. Lesser Demons have still been invading Sanctuary, but there’s been enough death and hatred among Men that they’ve stayed to smaller towns.

The Nephalem kept traveling, fighting against the Demons of Hell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know that's not how nephilim is spelt, but that's how it's spelt in Sanctuary. And while, yes, it should be The Nephal for singular, that's not how they did it.


	2. Chapter 2

The Demon Hunter stood silent and still, listening to the sounds around them. His armor was all black, and his boots had high, sharp heels. He had a pair of hand-crossbows with a quiver on each thigh and wore a hood pulled low on his face. Few had seen his face; fewer had survived the encounter. All most could say was that he had a thin and well maintained goatee.

The Enchantress stood at his back, waiting for a word from him. She, too, was in black armor, although hers did not cover everything, as his did. Bits of pink and rich purple cloth peeked through here and there. And every so often there would be a flash of a creamy white thigh. Her dark blonde hair was pulled back and twisted up against her head, held in place with a purple hairpin.

It had been two weeks since he’d felt the call to return to the ruins of Tristram, and now they were between the old Cathedral and the ruins. He still wasn’t certain _why_ he’d felt pulled back to the Cathedral, but whatever it was, it was _big_.

“I feel something,” the Enchantress whispered, her bright green eyes scanning the horizon.

“Yes,” was all he said. He felt it, too; it was whatever had led him back to Tristram. Only now, it wasn't a vague sense of Something Great. Now, he could pinpoint where it was, and part of it was coming closer to them. He turned, the heel of one boot digging into the soft earth below him, and brought up his dual crossbows. He said nothing, just waiting for whatever it was to show itself. And then his head cocked ever so slightly and he opened his glowing eyes.

“That’s a good way to shot, Tyrael” he drawled.

“Forgive me,” the Fallen Angel said as he came into view. “I felt your arrival.”

The Hunter lowered his weapons and nodded in the direction of the Cathedral. “D’you know what it is?”

“The seven Lords of Hell have returned.”

“So soon? And here I thought I might get a vacation,” he said dryly. He wondered how they had recovered so quickly, but that was unimportant. All that was important was that they had and that they had come back to Sanctuary.

“They’re… different now,” the Fallen One said.

“Different?”

“I’ve known the seven Lords of Hell since time was created. I know them as well as I know my brothers.”

The Demon Hunter scoffed at that. The five Archangels had known each other so well that none of them had thought the Angelic Embodiment of Wisdom would go mad and become the Angel of Death, bent on wiping out all beings with Demon blood. That had included Men, the long descended children of the Nephalem born of Angels and Demons intermingling.

“Valentine not withstanding,” he conceded. “Although, him I still recognized, even as Death.”

The Hunter shrugged. “The faces of Hatred, Destruction, and Terror may change, but they’re still what they are.”

The former Archangel was silent for a moment. “They’ve called for peace between Heaven, Hell, and Sanctuary. I suppose having the Burning Hells ravaged twice in twenty years and the Lord of Hell slain both times, they’ve decided a momentary retreat may be in order.”

There were things Tyrael left unsaid. That it hadn’t _just_ been the Burning Hells whose army had been ravaged. Heaven was still rebuilding, and they couldn’t do so nearly as quickly as Hell. While a slain Demon would return to the Void - a space deep within the Burning Hells full of shadows and nightmares - until they reformed, Angels could only be born during a moment of pure harmony in the Crystal Spire.

And there was also the world of Men. They were at war with themselves, struggling to collectively get back on their feet after Valentine had slaughtered so many of them. The places that weren’t at war were struggling to feed their populace or fend off Demon attacks. Heaven had, of course, done nothing to help. But, this time, Tyrael didn’t blame them; they didn’t have the _numbers_ to do anything.

The Demon Hunter stared at the Angel. He’d learned long ago, when the Demons had overrun his home and killed his family, that peace could never be, would never be. Even if there was a time of peace, it was a lie, because Hell would always give in to the evil it was born from. And how long would this respite even be? If the seven Lords of Hell had returned in just a few years, how long would they even need?

“The Angiris Council has been meeting with the Lords of Hell ever since their return.”

The Hunter’s glowing eyes flashed from beneath his hood. “And what've you decided this time? What’s the fate of Sanctuary to be?”

“If you’re willing, we’re going to accept their offer.”

“If _I’m_ willin'?”

The Embodiment of Wisdom was quiet for some time. He’d been there, as Justice, when the Angiris Council had voted on the destruction of Sanctuary. He, along with Hope and Fate, had voted against it; Wisdom had abstained and Valor had called for its destruction. And now, the votes had come in similarly: he, Hope, and Fate had voted for this, while Valor had voted against it.

“As Cain and I have been the last two leaders of the Horadrim-”

“Cain is dead,” the Hunter snapped. The old man’s death still weighed heavily on him. He’d stupidly walked straight into a diversion and realized it too late. Had he known that Leah, Cain’s adopted niece, had been Diablo’s own daughter, he would have forced her to wait outside. So many things could have been avoided.

Tyrael was silent for a moment. The Hunter had been to Heaven, had been to Hell; he knew spirits of the dead existed. He’d spoken to the dead. Did he really think returning the dead to life was only something the Lords of Hell were capable of, even if what the Lords of Hell returned them to was unlife? But then, when he’d Fallen, the dead had walked in his wake. Perhaps it wasn’t so strange that the Hunter didn’t realize.

“As we have been the last two Leaders of the Horadrim, we are to represent the High Heavens. I have a feeling their desire to have the both of us is that I am a mortal Angel and Cain was one of Heaven’s mortal citizens.”

That seemed to throw the Hunter. True, he’d only seen the Silver City, the home of the Angels. But despite having seen the souls of the damned in the Burning Hells and having spoken to the dead in the Pandemonium Fortress - the crossroads between Heaven and Hell - he’d never really thought the Angels would deign to allow Men to exist in their Realm.

“The Lords of Hatred, Terror, and Destruction - as the joint rulers of Hell - will select one to represent the Burning Hells,” he said. “I would assume they’ll settle on Hatred, as the eldest of the Lords.”

“And my part?”

“You, the Nephalem with both Angel and Demon blood in your veins, will represent Sanctuary.”

The Hunter scoffed. “So what’s it to be then? Free-for-all? Battle to the death? I mean, not to brag, but I did kill the Prime Evil and a Fallen Angel.”

“No,” Wisdom said, his lips twisting into an amused smile. “We’re going to unite the three Realms… by joining in marriage.”

The Hunter’s eyes seemed to grow all the brighter as he felt the anger swell within him. Only the discipline he’d learned kept it in check, kept him from shooting the mortal Angel in a fit of pique. “The fuck, Harry?! I ain’t marryin’ a fuckin' Lord of Hell.”

“Chester’s against it, too,” he said oh-so innocently and then shrugged. “I suppose he could be right.”

The Hunter bristled. It had been hate at first sight between himself and the head of the Angiris Council. It would have come to blows between them had the Prime Evil not sapped the strength of all the forces of Heaven at once.

“Fine,” he sighed irritably. “I’ll meet with them.”


	3. Chapter 3

The Demon Hunter let himself be led to the ruins of the Cathedral. The Cathedral had been where this had all begun. It seemed only fitting that this be where it ended. Or, at least, paused for a while.

He was taken down to the second level, where’d he’d found and rescued Cain five years ago. It was said that the Cathedral had sixteen levels of basements. The last one who could claim to have seen it was Aiden, the Prince- _cum_ -Host of Diablo. The Hunter had tried to go further down once, but when Harry had Fallen, the Angel destroyed the way deeper.

There was a large, square table just beyond the stairs; it had four chairs to the right and left, and three chairs at the front and back. Except for two of the closest chairs and one on the left side, they were already filled. The Hunter watched as Harry took his seat and he nodded to the Enchantress to take one of the other two. He pulled his chair out, sat, and leaned back to put his boots up on the table, their pointed heels still coated with mud, their soles still stained with the blood of lesser Demons. He set his crossbows to either side of his feet, a silent warning that he could - and would - have them in his hands at a moment’s notice.

He looked around the table. To his left was Eirena the Enchantress. Her name had been Daisy once, before the Prophet renamed her and had frozen her in time, waiting to awaken and fight at his side; Eggsy was quite probably the only one who knew that name. He’d told her his name in return; she and Harry were the only two who his name to be Gary.

Cain, the bald mage, once the Last of the Horadrum, was seated to his right. The man looked younger than he had the last time he’d seen the man, maybe in his fifties instead of seventy-going-on-two-hundred. He’d never heard Cain’s secret name, but he had little doubt that Harry knew it. Harry had, after all, created the order whose purpose was to pursue the Lords of Hell and imprison their essences within the Soulstones.

The Angiris Council sat along the left side. Itherael, the embodiment of Fate, sat to Eirena’s left. His wings were made of white, glowing tendrils that flowed constantly in a wind unfelt by others. He wore long, hooded robes. As far as the Demon Hunter knew, Fate had no face. Beside him was Hope. Auriel looked nearly similar to Fate, but her wings seemed more solidly connected than Fate’s own.

Beside him was Tyrael, the embodiment of Justice who had opted to Fall rather than sit in the High Heavens and do nothing to protect the mortals below. The Hunter had learned Tyrael’s secret name after the death of Valentine, of Wisdom- _cum_ -Death. The last time he’d seen Tyrael, the Fallen Angel had looked to be a man of no race and every race. Depending on the light, his skin had looked pale, tan, brown, yellow. His eyes had been golden then, too. Now, he was constantly pale skinned, with softly curling brown hair and dark eyes. Despite the softer look, the mortal Angel was still in his shining armor and there was steel in those dark eyes.

Next came the last member of the Angiris Council, Imperius; Valor; Chester. The Demon Hunter had never seen his face, if he had one. Imperius wore golden armor and his wings were fiery, golden, well-ordered tendrils. He wore a golden helmet that had a golden halo above it. He was arrogant to the point that he’d refused the Hunter’s help even as he lay dying from the Prime Evil’s corruption of Heaven. The Hunter had occasional, idle thoughts wondering if Imperius wasn’t also one of Azmodan’s lieutenants; after all, very little was known about the Demon of Pride.

To Cain’s right were the Lesser Lords of Hell. They and the three Great Evils of Hell certainly did have different faces than the last time he’d seen them - not that he’d seen the two closest to Cain before. But he had _felt_ them; oh gods, had he felt them.

The Lord of Anguish was a lightly tanned man with dark hair and eyes. He had a well trimmed mustache and wore a wide-brimmed hat in the style the Horse Lords across the Western Sea were said to. Beside him was the Lord of Pain; a man with black skin, dark eyes, and close-cropped, tightly curled black hair. There was a small, demonic _thing_ in his lap; the Hunter would have called it a dog save for how misshapen its head was. Next came the Lord of Lies. He was an older man with a scruffy red-blond beard. He was a touch portly but wore the clothes of a laborer. Last was the Lord of Sin, and the Hunter could feel the lust coming off of him in waves. He was a pale man with the barest hint of a beard. He had darker hair and dark eyes. He, too, wore a wide-brimmed hat and he dressed after the fashion of the Horse Lords. Their demon names were Andariel, Duriel, Belial, and Azmodan, and the Hunter could only assume they had secret names. Those were not names any Hunter had ever learned and lived to tell.

Across the table from the Hunter were the Great Evils, the once the eldest of the Demon Lords. He knew their names well, for he had felt them often in his life. They were Hatred, Destruction, and Terror; they were the greatest evils known to Man.

Hatred’s last face had been male and… he’d felt _different_. This face was a woman; not just a woman, but a succubus. Normally, they were the handmaidens of Sin, but this one felt older than the present Lord of Sin. She had green eyes that were nearly glowing. Her ivory skin was bloodstained in places, some of it looking as if she’d cried bloody tears. Five rust coloured horns swept back from her brow and two more followed the curve of her jaw; the central horn had a ruby set into it not far above her forehead. She had ivory colored wings with long, dark blue fingers; the skin was torn in places. She was dressed in low cut, black robes and she wore a golden collar with an emerald pendant; the pendant was embedded in her skin.

Destruction also wore a female face this time. And like Hatred, she felt _different_. She felt _younger_. She had long, golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes. Her face was as human as those of the Lesser Evils. She dressed like a noble woman and her posture reflected that. The form she wore was pretty; Eggsy would give her that. But… he didn’t get the sense she was a succubus. 

Terror, too, wore a human woman’s face. She was a brown woman with short cut brown and gold hair. She wore glasses and had dark, intelligent eyes. She wore the clothes of a wealthy businessman, although her posture was far more femminie than her method of dress. She looked defiant and kept eying the Lord of Anguish in a way that told Eggsy she loathed him.

The Hunter wondered if these new Great Evils had kept their predecessor’s names, and he _was_ certain they were different demons. Mephisto, Baal, and Diablo had _exuded_ male energy. These were very clearly female demons. And that… made him curious. When Prince Aiden had fallen to Diablo, the Lord of Terror had taken on his preferred form. That body had been utterly destroyed and yet, Diablo’s latest host - this time his own human daughter - had taken a very similar form. Perhaps it was because she’d been his daughter. Perhaps that was also why Diablo had been the one in command despite his daughter having been forced to host all seven Lords of Hell and become the Prime Evil.

Now he had to wonder just _how_ close he’d come to destroying the Lords of Hell if they’d been left so weakened that other Demons had risen up to take their thrones. If Men did not exist, would he have ended the Eternal Conflict when he destroyed the Prime Evil? Had Valentine actually been right about wanting to wipe out humanity?

The Demon Hunter pushed the questions aside and tossed his head back, letting his black hood fall. His dark brown, nearly black hair fell to his shoulders and his eyes, not glowing so brightly now, were a deep, rich red. Once, when he’d been little more than a child, his hair had been light brown and his eyes green. But that was before he’d become a Hunter; that had been before his parents and his little sister had been slain by demons. 

Sometimes, he wondered if his sister was why the Prophet had chosen Eirena to send to him and not one of her sister Enchantresses. His sister’s hair had been lighter than his, but she’d had the same bright green eyes he’d had. And, like Eirena, her name had been Daisy. He would have thought her to be that self same sister, somehow saved by the Prophet, but Eirena had been born nearly 1500 years ago. It just wasn’t possible.

The Hunter tipped his head from side to side, getting a satisfying _pop_ from one side and a _crack_ from the other. “I know your names, but - save for Tyrael - none of _you_ know mine,” he said, his eyes falling on Imperius for a moment and a small smirk forming. “My name… is Eggsy.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Eggsy,” the Lord of Hatred purred. “What an interesting name for such a _powerful_ Man.”

He could _feel_ her power in her words. He’d felt the same from the other succubi he’d fought, but she was… different. It was as if he were immune to her. He’d fought plenty of the Handmaidens of Sin, including Cydaea, the Maiden of Lust. She had been - _or perhaps_ , he thought, _is_ \- one of Azmodan’s seven Lieutenants, the Avatars of Sin. But despite how he could feel the power coming off of her… it wasn’t affecting him. He’d never let the succubi or Cydaea see that their power was affecting him, but they _had_. So why wasn’t _hers_?

He saw her bloodstained lips purse ever so slightly as she furrowed her brow. She didn’t understand his immunity either, and that was very interesting to him. That at least implied that this wasn’t something she’d encountered before, or perhaps not since the time when there were no Men, just Nephalem.

“Ohhh, he don’t like you, Lil,” the Lord of Sin drawled.

“Silence,” she snapped.

“Lil?” Eggsy would have sworn she saw her wings twitch at the name.

“ _Lilith_ ,” she said.

“Sort of a Man’s name, ain’t it?”

Her eyes flared. “As _we_ existed first, it’s _clearly_ a Demon’s name.”

“If we could discuss the terms of the truce _before_ returning to full-scale war.”

Eggsy glared at Lilith for a moment before sighing and crossing his arms. He looked away from the entire group, certainly not pouting. If he hadn’t looked away, he would have seen Lilith doing the same thing.

“Yeah, sure, Tyrael,” he said.

“Of course,” she said.

“The terms as discussed are simple enough: for the length of the Nephalem’s natural life, Heaven and Hell will pull back to their own territories. There will be _no_ fighting, not even in Pandemonium,” Harry said, looking around the table. “In return, Cain, Eggsy, and myself will marry one of the Lords of Hell. As the eldest, it would make sense for it to be Lilith.”

Eggsy groaned and tipped his head back against his chair. Couldn’t he do something _else_? Like get along with Imperius for five minutes? But this meant… well, Cain had been in his seventies when he’d died, and Cain had been the oldest person he’d ever met… so something like forty years of peace on Sanctuary… at least from outside forces. That would give them time to recover and rebuild. And maybe sort their own shit out enough to stop fighting among themselves.

“Alright, so what’s the full terms?”

A scroll - a very _thick_ scroll - appeared on the table in front of Eggsy. He unrolled enough of it to read it and… it was full of language bordering on legalese. He wasn’t a stupid man, but he _rarely_ had to read anything, much less a scroll full of Angels and Demons trying to close off or create loopholes in a contract.

“Do yeh want the short of it?” Cain whispered.

“If the Nephalem has trouble reading,” Imperius began, his words dripping with his smug superiority, “we can make certain he’s present for all future edits. We’ll use small words.”

Eggsy shot him a dark look, his eyes glowing brightly for a moment. “The Nephalem can read as well as he can put down a fuckin’ Angel.” He looked back at the scroll. “Arsehole,” he muttered.

“Why doesn’t he read that later?” Lilith purred. “He can work on deciding which Demon Lord in the meantime.”

Eggsy looked up. “What d’you mean?”

“It’s about a third of the way in,” Destruction said. “Since the Angels and Demons couldn’t agree on which Demon Lord you’re going to marry, the choice is being left up to you. Of course, as Tyrael said, Lilith does make the most sense in that respect.”

“Oh, goody,” he said dryly.

“Yes,” Lilith said, sounding just about as pleased. “I thought we could start with the Great Evils and then the Lesser Evils. Ideally, you would pick between myself, Tilde, and Ginger,” she said, motioning to Destruction and Terror in turn.

“So, what? I’m goin’ on fuckin’ _dates_ with each of you?”

“Something like that,” Lilith said with a one-armed shrug.

Eggsy rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Fuck my life,” he muttered. “I’ll tell you right now, I ain’t datin’ Belial or whatever he wants to call himself.”

“Oh, I call myself many things,” he said with a crooked grin.

“Dean,” Lilith said tiredly. “He actually makes me _miss_ Belial.”

Eggsy bit down on a snicker. He was _not_ going to see these Demons as anything more than that, with the exception of one being his… whatever you call it when you’re forced to marry someone and fuck ‘em when they want.

He supposed he’d been forced to do _worse_ things in his life besides fuck a Demon. There’d been times he’d had to live off of giant, mutated bugs. Once he’d had to eat a Lacuni, a desert-dwelling panther-man. He’d waded through corpses, been drenched in blood, vomit, shit. He’d get through this, and the Men of Sanctuary better fuckin’ appreciate what he was doing for their fuckin’ sake.

“Alright, so who’s first?”

“I am,” Lilith said. “I thought we could… go somewhere together. Of course, I’d expect you to bring your… charming… little friend there.”

Eirena positively _bristled_ at her words. “I wouldn’t let him go anywhere _alone_ with _you_.”

“S’long as you get that I’m bringing a portal scroll with me.”

Lilith smiled slowly. “I’d expect no less.”

“And I don’t put out on the first date.”

She laughed slowly. “Oh, my dear, I won’t lay a finger on you. You have my word.”

Eggsy wondered what she was planning on doing, where she was planning on taking him. He doubted it could be anything good. And why had she wanted Eirena to come along? Did she expect him to prove his willingness to abide by the contract and perform one act of hate or something?

If it was, she was _one_ succubus who was gonna learn _just_ how powerful he was, and quickly.


	5. Chapter 5

Eggsy stepped out of the portal, Eirena right behind him. He looked around for a moment, debating stepping back through the red, swirling gateway before dismissing the idea. He realized - with a slightly ironic grin - that the room they’d portaled to… was cross-shaped, with a pentagram in the center. He could see three levers, one at each end of the cross, and a door at the far end.

Lilith waved a hand toward each lever. Dark energy swirled from her hand to the levers and then pulled each of them. The pentagram opened, revealing a winding stairwell in the centre. She started down it and they followed her.

The next level was well lit; its walls made from obsidian and the floors made of deep grey basalt tiles. As far as Eggsy could judge, they were about a square metre each, making the corridor they were walking along a good three metres wide.

They walked for a bit, passing doors and corridors on either side; passing open rooms that went up higher than they’d come down. They went down several flights of winding stairs that were lit up by light coming from nowhere, with nothing but darkness beyond; they passed through a couple portals, taking them from one strangely lit set of stairs to another.

Finally, they came to a door. It was tall and wide; enough so that Eggsy felt as small as a child in front of it. Blue, glowing runes were inscribed along the edges and they almost looked to be moving. The door, itself, was blood red and had Mephisto’s insignia in the centre, half of it on each door.

His insignia was a set of three skulls, two behind and seeming to support the larger one in the front. Five bones stuck out from the centre; two of them horizontal, one vertical, and one in between on each side. This all sat on a giant crescent that pointed down. The horizontal bones were set as door handles.

“All you need to do,” Lilith began, “is break the seal, go inside, and unchain… what’s inside.”

Eggsy eyed her for a moment. “Why don’t _you_?”

Her eyes flashed and she sighed, choking down her hatred for the moment. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“A Demon,” Eggsy said and shrugged. “Don’t need to know more.”

“I am Mephisto’s daughter. His _wayward_ one.”

Eggsy could _hear_ the rage in her words, as if all the hatred she now had domain over existed _just_ for her father.

“As you can imagine, being the Daughter of Hatred is not… the best of things to be,” she said. She had suffered greatly at her father's hand. It was what had led her to rebelling against him and taking his throne once he was too greatly weakened to keep it. “This room is one that is warded against me. I’d thought… taking his throne would force his warding to let me through, but…” She tittered darkly. “I suppose he knew I’d try to take his power one day. He never _was_ a fool.”

“So… the thing he’s got chained up… that’s yours?”

She hummed. “Yes, and no.”

“Crystal clear, that.”

She eyed him for a moment. “Do you know your own history, Nephalem? How your kind came to be?”

He shrugged. “Angels and Demons fuckin’.”

“Yes,” she said. “That’s why Sanctuary was created. Those of us who tired of the Conflict, who tired of my father and those like him… we stole the Eye of Anu and created Sanctuary. It was to be _our_ Sanctuary, a place we could just… _exist_. I, myself, mothered it, you could say, just as I gave birth to the first of the Nephalem.”

“Why’re you tellin’ me this?”

“Because only a Nephalem can break the seal on that door and break the chains within. I was… trapped in the Void when the Nephalem faded into Men, and by the time I’d gotten free of it and learned what my father had done, this door was already sealed.” She was silent for a moment. “I have waited nearly 5,000 years to open this Heaven blessed door.”

Eggsy eyed the door for a few moments. “What’s it gonna do to Sanctuary when I let it out?”

The question seemed to throw her and she shook her head. “Nothing.”

Eggsy nodded and put his hands on the bone handles, wincing at the pain shooting through his arms. He heard a crack and the insignia split down the middle. He pulled the heavy doors open and went inside. It was black as night inside and Eirena whispered a word and the top of her staff glowed brightly. Eggsy heard her gasp before he realized what he was looking at, and what he was looking at made his stomach clench.

There was an Angel chained in the centre of the circular room; his wrists to the walls, ankles to the floor. His wings were drooping so badly Eggsy thought they’d been ripped off at first. He could see the ends of hooks through his shoulders and his sides. Those were attached to chains that connected to different points on the walls. Hellfire burned beneath him; while they could hear nothing, they knew he had to be screaming in agony.

Eggsy walked over to the Angel and he could just see the warding around him. He reached out and touched it. Pain shot up his arm and the warding broke in a flash of light. He went to the hooks first and pulled them out. They came, slowly, and with that same agony shooting through him.

“Eirena,” he said as he knelt.

She cast a shielding spell and a healing spell on him, and then watched as he reached into the Hellfire to break the bonds from his ankles. She cast the healing spell on him again as he stood and watched as the black, cracked skin beneath the burned armor healed.

“Does it still hurt?”

He nodded once. “Dunno if it’s just from that or from the chains. Hurt like a motherfuck.”

He motioned for her to come over and then broke the last of the Angel’s chains. They both grabbed him and dragged him away from the Hellfire. Eirena cast her healing spell but it did nothing and she frowned.

“I’m not powerful enough to heal him,” she said. “Without whatever Mephisto was using to keep him alive, he may die.”

“Good,” Eggsy said, slipping his hands under the Angel’s arms and dragging him toward the corridor. “Anythin’s gotta be better than that shit.”

Once he got the Angel through the door, he heard Lilith, in a voice as cold as ice, say, “Give him to me.”

He gently laid the Angel down and stepped away. He didn’t know what to expect. Would she kill him? Would she hurt him worse? Certainly he didn’t expect her to carefully pick him up, like a bridegroom carrying his bride, and start walking back the way they’d come.

“I can’t make a portal in here. More of my father’s magic,” she said.

Eggsy and Eirena exchanged a look and a shrug before following her back to the stairs.


	6. Chapter 6

Eggsy and Eirena stepped out of Lilith’s portal and Eggsy gasped. He looked around with awestruck eyes. He’d seen greenery before and clear blue skies, but not like _this_. This looked… almost untouched by Men, by Demons, by the Conflict.

The sky was bright blue. They were by a stream that ran clear and pure. There was a large oak tree nearby; so large and so old that its roots were sticking out of the high bank and into the river. He could hear calm, sweet birdsong and smell the flowers that grew around them.

He’d never seen anything so pure and beautiful in his life, and it made his heart ache just to look at it. And for whatever reason, for the first time in years, he thought about his childhood. Because something about this place - this beautiful, pure, untouched place - reminded him of the time before the Demons had killed his family.

“Where are we?” he asked, his voice quiet and sounding almost breathless.

“The first place I made,” Lilith said softly as she set the Angel down beside the river.

She tore away a strip of his tattered robes and dipped it in the water, and used that to wash the Angel’s face. She ripped away the rest and gave him a thorough, gentle bath. Eggsy wondered what she must see as she cleaned away the Angel’s blood from his wounds. Because the blood and the grime were all _he_ could see; the Angel’s body wasn’t visible to him.

He watched her as she worked. Her face was calm and her eyes weren’t glowing. She looked… peaceful, and it took more time than it should have for him to understand how she was looking at the Angel.

“You love him.”

“Yes,” she said without looking at him. “Is it so hard to believe?”

“Well… _yeah_. You’re the Demon Lord of Hatred.”

“Not always,” she said, looking up at him finally. “I was one of his Lieutenants. Scorned and betrayed love. I would seduce Angels and turn them against one-another. It was easier with Men.” She tittered. “And men.”

“So… who’s he?”

“Inarius,” she said, the single word a prayer on her lips. “He was the first to look at me and see something _more_ than a Demon. We made this world together. He was my…” She tipped her head to the side. They hadn’t had a word for it at the time; she had just been his, and he hers. “Husband? Is that still the word Men use?”

“Yeah,” Eirena said softly.

“He was the father of my three children,” she said. She laughed softly. “Although the first of them, the first Nephalem, my Linarian, changed his name to Rathma.”

“Rathma?” Eggsy said. “Like the _Priests_ of Rathma?”

“Mm-hmm.” Lilith moved, shifting so she could lay Inarius’ head in her lap and she ran her hand through his long, long hair. He was barely visible to her, more like a wave of heat than a being, but she _could_ see him. “He was the first Necromancer, trained by the great Dragon.”

“What Dragon?” Eggsy asked, shaking his head.

“He’s… strange. His purpose is to keep balance between Heaven and Hell, so he must be part of Anu. But…” She shook her head. “I don’t know a lot about him, not beyond his taking in my rebellious son.”

Eggsy snorted. “Imagine that.”

She tipped her head to the side in a half-shrug. “I was angry, but I wasn’t truly surprised. The children of rebelling Angels and Demons were bound to be the same way.”

“What happened to the other two?” Eirena asked.

“I…” She shrugged. “We realized Heaven and Hell would take this from us and kill our children. I may have gone… slightly mad. I slaughtered our allies and fought even Inarius.” She was quiet a moment. “I killed them. “My Gareth, my Dayesa'ahye.”

Eggsy felt his blood run cold. He knew Gareth could be shortened to Gary. And the other name had sounded too close to ‘Daisy’ for his liking. _Far_ too close. But it was coincidence. That had been _thousands of years ago_ ; he was _not_ thousands of years old. He was twenty-five, roughly speaking.

Eirena looked from Eggsy to Lilith. She knew what he was thinking; she could see it in his face. The horror; the stark refusal. “Did you give them two names? Or did that start later?”

“Among Men, that started after I was in the Void, but most of us took on a second name. Something free from our heritages. I gave him ‘Lee’,” she said, brushing her hand along his cheek. “He gave me ‘Michelle’.”

“Excuse me, would you,” Eggsy said numbly.

He turned and walked away from them, not really caring where he went. He just needed to get _away_ from them; away from this entire _thing_ where the fuckin’ _Lord of Hatred_ had children named Gary and Daisy; away from this _thing_ where an Angel and a _Demon_ had his parents’ names. It had to be a trick. It couldn’t be real. Couldn’t be. It. No. _No_. He was a _Demon Hunter_ , not fuckin’ _Demon spawn_.

He stopped after a little while. He wasn’t sure how far he’d gone, except that he couldn’t hear the stream. It was only a moment before he heard movement behind himself and his hands snapped to his crossbows… and then fell away. He knew how Eirena moved enough to know it was her. He didn’t move when he felt her hand on his shoulder.

“Eggsy…”

“I haven’t even _thought_ their names since that day,” he said quietly. “Succubi ain’t mind readers.”

“No, they’re not,” Eirena said softly.

“She couldn’t affect me. She tried at the meeting. I didn’t understand why before but…”

“But now you think…?”

“Yeah. I dunno how, but…”

Eirena was quiet for a moment, just standing in silence with the man who was like a brother to her. Anyway, she thought that’s what she felt for him. She’d only had her sister enchantresses to compare it to. Everything before that, before the Prophet had healed her and saved her life… that was too fuzzy to remember.

“I don’t think she knows.”

Eirena nodded to herself. “She wouldn’t have tried to charm you if she did.” She squeezed his shoulder. “We could go back? See what more you can learn from her?”

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to learn more. He didn’t want to find something more that would just confirm this shit. He sighed. “Yeah, alright.”

She put an arm around him and he put his arm around her. They walked back silently, going slowly simply because Eggsy did _not_ want to go. By the time they got back to the stream, Lilith and Inarius were sitting against the tree. Both had cast aside their true forms for the forms of Men, for what had undoubtedly been their forms thousands of years ago.

And it was all Eggsy needed to see to confirm everything. Because, for the first time in fifteen years, he was looking at his parents. He didn’t think it was Lilith… his _mum_ … casting some spell to confuse his senses. Her eyes were locked on his… on his _dad_ , as if he was all there were in creation. 

But then he heard Eirena gasp a single word: “Prophet?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dæġesēaġe is Old English for “Day’s Eye”, which is most likely where “Daisy” comes from. That mass of letters and diacritical marks is supposed to sound very close to ‘day’s eye’. The pronunciation was written out, so I used that rather than the actual word.


	7. Chapter 7

“Hello, Eirena,” Lee said and then turned his gaze on Eggsy. “Nephalem.”

“Inarius… Prophet… _Lee_ …” Eggsy said, his anger just below the surface. “Got any other names you wanna tell us about?”

“I think you’re well aware of any other name I have.”

Michelle frowned slightly. “What other name are you talking about?”

Eggsy looked at her for a moment. The confusion was clear in her face and in her eyes, and she was looking to Lee and not him. So she really _didn’t_ know. Was that the _real_ reason _his father_ had sent Eirena to him? Not because the man _knew_ he would need her but so _he_ could recognize his own son? That must have been why he’d chosen someone named Daisy. That-

“Li- Mi-” He pointed a finger, almost accusingly, at his Mum. “ _She_ said you’d been inside that room for _five-thousand years_. _Eirena_ is from _fifteen-hundred_ years ago. How long were you really in that room?”

Clear anger shot across his Mum’s face. “When did you get free?!” she snarled.

Lee sighed softly. She sounded personally offended by the fact that he’d been free for a few years. But… being the daughter of Hatred meant that a _lot_ of things stoked her temper. But she’d only truly lost her temper once that he knew of. He’d only once seen the truly demonic vision contained within the succubus’ normal form.

“I was only free for a short time, barely twenty years,” he said. “Mephisto’s chains hadn’t fully sapped my strength and I _knew_ if I escaped, he’d realize it and hunt me down. And that he’d see to it that I couldn’t escape again. So I waited until I sensed what I had been waiting for, and then I sent myself there. I found her, cut down and bleeding out. I healed her, and trained her and her sister Enchantresses.”

She shook her head. “Why did you choose me? Why not Lyssa? She was stronger than I.”

Eggsy’s eyes widened slightly. He’d _seen_ his sister cut down; he’s _seen that_. “Did you even know? That there was some great catastrophe I would need her for?”

Lee shrugged slightly. “You are a Nephalem and I knew the world would be full of Men. That, alone, would draw demonic forces to you. Admittedly, it was a gamble that there would be something great.”

“You son of a bitch,” Eggsy breathed. “You killed them just to…” He shook his head and motioned at Eirena. “Just to… to…” To reunite them; to make certain his… his _children_ were together.

“Would you not have done the same?”

Eggsy stiffened. He’d lived his life for vengeance, hunting down Demons in the hopes that he might one day find the Demon that had killed his sister. He looked at Eirena, at _his_ Daisy. Would he have killed three women, three of the Men of Sanctuary that he was supposed to be defending, to save her?

“Yeah. Yeah, I woulda.” He sighed after a moment. “Guess I can stop… lookin’ for the Demon that killed my family then.”

“A Demon Hunter… reneging on his quest for vengeance?” Michelle said, her words teasing but with a sharp edge of mockery.

His crossbows were in his hands before he even realized he’d gone for them, and he _ached_ to pull the triggers. But… did he want to become the Demon that had killed his Mother? Did he want to cross the line between Hunter and Demon and become the hunted himself?

He forced himself to release the pressure on the triggers and lower the crossbows. It was, perhaps, the hardest thing he’d ever done. He took several slow, deep breaths, trying to force his Hatred down. He realized it was no wonder he’d taken so quickly to channeling his Hate; Hatred had been his grandfather.

“Tell me how you did it,” he said to Lee and then looked at his Daisy for a moment before locking eyes with Michelle. “Tell me how you sent Daisy an’ me into the future, an’ how you’d know when we’d show up.”

“Him and… Daisy?”

Lee looked at her and nodded. “Gary,” he said with a look toward Eggsy, “and Daisy. Our children.”


	8. Chapter 8

_He’d been watching the children play when he’d heard it; the first screams of battle as their haven was invaded. He called the children to come back to the house. The boy looked to be ten and the girl five; both were older. Time was new and not yet running at full speed._

_He expected to hear the battle cry of one side or the other, but neither came. Not before a shadow fell over them. He heard his daughter scream and he looked up. The Demon’s bat-like wings were stretched out, her skeletal tail’s three-pronged tip dripped with blood and gore. Her body was surrounded by shadow and lightning, and the pretense of flesh had fallen away._

_Inarius had never seen her in her true form, in all of her Hatred and rage. He could see, now more than ever, that she was her father’s daughter. The winds around her whipped at her dress, pressing it against her now skeletal frame. Her glowing blue-green eyes focused on the screaming child and her tattered wings folded in against her body as she dove toward the sound. Inarius called forth his sword, but he was too late. The scream was cut short as the Demon’s pronged tail cut through her delicate body. And then their son was screaming._

_Even as he moved to meet the Demon, Inarius tapped into his connection to the Worldstone._ 'Away' _was all he sent to it. He felt his childrens’ presence fade as they were sent somewhere else and gave it not another thought as he struck at the Demon. The Demon who, lost in her Hate and Fear, had slaughtered friends and allies alike._

_As he fought her, he felt and heard the arrival of Angels and Demons. He struck her down and watched as the shadows around her vanished. And while the flesh did not reappear, he could all but see the hatred in her face as the love within her died._

_There was no fighting off the army of Hell, however, and he was one of the few taken alive that day. Hell demanded the destruction of Sanctuary and an end to the Nephalem; Heaven voted against the idea. A compromise was made: Inarius would alter the resonance of the World Stone and strip the Nephalem of their immortality and the power, and then he would be turned over to Mephisto for all time._

_Over the generations, the Nephalem became Men, and Inarius languished in his prison._

~*~*~*~

_Centuries of endless torment gave him plenty of time to think, plenty of time to wonder_ where _he’d sent his son and dying daughter. He’d only meant for them to be sent away from the battle, but he had, instead, thrown them into time. And so he began to plan, and to store away what little power he managed to recoup. It made the torture all the worse, but it meant he_ might _have a chance to escape one day._

_Millenia passed before he felt the Worldstone’s song change for a moment. He summoned all of the power he’d kept hidden away and found himself beside his bloody, dying daughter. He healed her, sapping himself of the rest of the power he’d kept, and lost consciousness. When he woke, she was curled up beside him, asleep under the tendrils of his wings._

_He stroked her cheek and wondered how long it would take Mephisto to realize his prize had escaped. How long did he have to train her to be able to defend herself? Would she age like a mortal now that the Worldstone had been changed? And if she - who had been outside of time when he’d altered the Worldstone - remained a Nephalem, how long before the forces of Hell sought her out? And how long before Mephisto claimed his granddaughter? He touched her forehead and made her forget everything before being healed._

_She opened her eyes, staring up at the white-robed Angel. “Who are you?” she asked._

_“I am the Prophet,” he told her._

_“‘m Daisy.”_

_“No, my dear,” he said. “You are now Eirena, and I will train you to become an Enchantress.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Because you are needed, little one. Someday there will be a Great War and the hero will need help.”_

_“From me?” the little girl squeaked._

_“From an Enchantress, yes,” he said. “You are the first. I will train several of you and send you forward to meet him.”_

~*~*~*~

_He watched as his daughter grew, and as the others he’d found. They were all powerful, and Lyssa was perhaps the most powerful of the four. But Eirena had the potential to become far more powerful; Inarius simply wasn’t trying to make her tap into her Nephalem blood. The less she knew about herself, the safer she’d be._

_Time had, indeed, caught up with his daughter, and she’d grown up at the same speed as her sisters… but then she’d slowed in aging, or perhaps she’d stopped entirely. He couldn’t be certain, just as he couldn’t be certain how the changes in time would affect his son, whenever he appeared in the future._

_In the end, he didn’t have all of the time he’d wanted to train Eirena. The forces of Hell had nearly tracked him down, and so he’d put the four Enchantresses in what would become a tomb for three of them. If he’d been able to recover sufficiently, he could have simply sent Eirena forward using the Worldstone; although given the destruction of it before Eirena’s awakening, perhaps it had been just as well he’d been unable to._

_“Awaken when he’s near you, my child,” he whispered as he watched the life drain out of three of the sealed women. “And help him.”_

_He’d barely managed to hide away the tomb and his hidden, sleeping daughter when Hell caught up to him. He was forced back to his prison and he knew there would be no escaping again. But he’d done what he could for his children, and that would have to be enough._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /loud screeching/ I GOT SOMETHING WRITTEN!  
> 🤞🤞🤞🤞 For my next trick, I will attempt to update something else.


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